Despite several technical difficulties, Lordi had the place rocking.

Last I’d seen of Lordi was at this past summer’s Ozz Fest, and I found them to be highly entertaining but a bit weak in the music department. This time around, in the intimate confines of Headliners, Lordi was an entirely different beast. The monster show they put was still hilariously entertaining, but without as much room to like, blow up shit, the music became more of a part of the show. Equal parts Kiss, Old Alice Cooper and nu school metal, songs like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Bringing Back the Balls to Rock” really lit the place on fire, even without pyro.

The guitarist, a mummy who goes by the name Amen was all over the place, and played so well, that you forgot for a second that it was a dude dressed up like a mummy doing a Chuck Berry duck walk. Mr. Lordi, the Rob Zombie on steroids frontman, played up the horror of it all stalking the stage like the deranged monster he was dressed up as. It was funny to see a wave of drunk people flinch if he came a little too close.

MR. LORDI

A few songs into Type O Negative’s set, frontman Peter Steele ran off the stage, and returned a little later with a stool, announcing that he “wasn’t feeling well” and would be sitting for the remainder of the show. Hardly the kind of behavior that you’d expect from a hardened goth metal veteran like Steele.

Still, you have to give the band credit. They still managed to rock out a delightful set of old standards that thrilled the fans. Even though the set barely made it to 90 minutes with no encore, all the bases were touched upon.

“Halloween In Heaven,” the best song of their newest, Dead Again got some love from the crowd. Also, sitting on his ass didn’t dampen Steele’s Bela Lugosi vocals during the two “hits” Christian Woman” and “Black No. 1.”A bit of “Come as you Are” and a Kurt Cobain / suicide wisecrack preceded “Gravity” and of course it was a blizzard on stage during “Too Late: Frozen.” The Fans walked away happy. The Halloween ritual was complete.

We made our way out to the parking lot just in time to see a young woman in a vintage designer mini dress take a face plant right into a mud puddle. Her boyfriend just stood watching, impassive, he didn’t even laugh. She got up, pulled her g-string out of her ass-crack, brushed off her dress and took off down the sidewalk, with her boyfriend in tow as if nothing happened.

A couple things:

One, If they were were on the same dope that Pete Steele got ahold of, no wonder he had to sit down for the set.

Two, how come, even though it’s a hour and a half from here, does Louisvillians seem to do much better dope and drink twice as much than we do, and yet have a significantly lower percentage of clueless assholes than Indianapolis? Enquiring minds want to know!

We slept in the rest area just north of Columbus, IN that night soothed by the sounds of I-65. Next morning we made our way to see the Dalai Lama giving a public talk at IU’s Assembly Hall. We make it in and it was like Jesus Christ, JFK and Teddy Rooselvelt was in the house. Cars were parked willy-nilly for miles around, and assembly hall itself was packed full of aging hippies, intellectuals and curious students.

However, due to the fact that we were a half mile away, I couldn’t hear anything, well, I think I heard “compassion” twice. But that was it. And that was all I needed to hear.

Later in the evening we overhear a couple of co-eds talking. “I’m not sure, but I think he was saying a lot of stuff about compassion.” We go in search of a more authentic Tibetan experience at the Tibetan Cultural Center and encounter a new archway at the entrance that proclaims it the Tibetan and Mongolian cultural center or some such. Inside, there was a huge crowd of Mongolians gathered around in a circle, watching two men in panties wrestle.

MONGOLIANS!!!

Now, granted, Mongolians are involved in the same struggle with China that Tibet is fighting, and many of them follow the Dalai Lama, but we were in the mood to party with some Tibetans. However, we settled for an always-delicious Tibetan supper at Little Tibet and more rock and roll.

With thoughts on compassion and the t-shirt slogan “I’ll try to act nicer – If you try to be smarter" on our minds, We headed over to Upland Brewing Company for a benefit for Center Point, Indiana’s Exotic Feline Rescue Center. When we got there, the Double E Band was playing. And it wasn’t pretty. The violin player, who was not bad looking for a girl, was making an absolute travesty of herself. She was trying to play and dance and sing back-up in this strange skin-tight Ohio State football jersey mini-dress thing wearing 10 inch high bright-red heels straight out of the titty bar.

Several times she almost completely toppled over. My compassion was tested, but I thought, maybe she just put together an ill-advised holloween costume and didn’t think about the fact that only strippers can get away with 10 inch heels. Then she started to sing “Me & Bobby Mcgee” and I had to leave in horror, all my compassion gone.

We give them half an hour and come back to see Cocaine Wolves. Who rocked asses two area codes away with a set that was all classic hard rocking fun. “Ladies Love Cocaine Wolves” was an instant classic with a gibsontastic sound that oozed denim and sweat. The band had a frenzied stage attack that was full of energy, cuss words and raw rock power. Only good things can come of this.

COCAINE WOLVES

Then, Sump Pumps play and promptly blow the place apart. They rocked so hard even the violin chick from the Double E Band was jumping up and down in her 10-inch whore shoes without hardly a stumble. Featuring a moog and keytar player, and all wearing identical uniforms, these guys take what the Poster Children have learned from Kraftwerk and add a healthy dose of snot-nosed hardcore punk to the mix. Their original tunes like “The Shortest Fuse” and “Space Camp” show off what may be just about the best band in Bloomington these days, but when they ripped into Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” it was jaw-dropping. Any band that can cover Motorhead with a MOOG and rock it out is infallable in my book.

SUMP PUMPS

We ended up in Uncle Fester’s for a punk rock cover up show with Mouthbreather doing At the Drive In, Tremendous Fucking playing Mclusky and Red Leather Yellow Leather doing the Cure. Uncle Fester’s, situated right in the heart of Kirkwood, is a nice little bar that is sorta like Bloomington’s answer to The Melody Inn. That evening it was packed with costumed kids partying almost as hard as the kids in Louisville. After a nice set of At the Drive In covers from Mouthbreather that made me want to check them out further, Tremfu comes on and dials in a pitch-perfect set of Mclusky songs that ended with a delirious “Lightsabre Cock Sucking Blues.”

TREMENDOUS FUCKING

I wasn’t surprised that Tremfu did a good job, after all Mclusky isn’t that far of a stretch from their normal sound. What was surprising was how many people in the joint knew Mclusky’s songs. An obscure Welsh punk band that has been dead for almost a decade, there was no doubt that they have a legacy still living on in the hearts and minds of costumed college kids.

After seeing what the next band looked like, and knowing that they would be playing cure songs, I decided not to test my compassion anymore and end this little Halloween road trip on a good note. I’m trying to be nicer, but why does it have to be so hard for other people to be smarter?

–Jeff Napier